disaffected voters
Pauline Hanson (Image: AAP/Darren England)

Rowe Rowe Rowe your note (of apology) You can set your watch to almost every development in the saga of Jessica Rowe having Senator Pauline Hanson on her podcast for a chummy “apolitical” chat about living/loving/laughing, juggling parenthood and a busy career, and keeping Australia safe for the white man (that last bit may not have come up). The bright initial announcement. The swift backlash. The defence, where Rowe argues she has “interrogated Pauline many times over the years” and makes it “clear in the podcast I don’t support her views”.

Then the backdown and the screencap apology. “Kindness is at the heart of who I am,” Rowe bravely points out, before thanking two of the more unimpeachable progressive celebs for telling her what a terrible idea it was. If it weren’t for Australian of the Year Grace Tame, Rowe might never have known why it was inappropriate to have a humanising chinwag with someone whose views on Asians, Muslims, Indigenous people or whatever minority she happens upon have been a matter of public record for a quarter of a century.

The original interview was swiftly removed from the website.

Of course, Rowe or Hanson cannot lose in this situation, not in any lasting sense. Hanson has done her job — everyone now knows Jessica Rowe has a podcast. She’s the only politician on the show’s list of guests for a reason. Hanson can now leap on the episode as an example of the dreaded cancel culture and push for donations and members. Expect a lot more of this faux-bafflement in the lead-up to the next election.

Bully for you Now here’s someone whose views on parenting we’re very keen to hear. YA author John Marsden is discussing his new memoir Take Risks, which “explores teaching, parenting and society”, at an online event being held by Readings.

Back in 2019, while promoting The Art of Growing Up he had a theory about the leading cause of bullying — it’s those little dipshits no one likes. He got a lot of flak for saying most bullying was prompted by “unlikeable behaviour” on the part of the utter loser being bullied, and that it can act as “valid feedback” for the fuckin’ dork in question. This was only a minor aside in The Art of Growing Up and we’re hoping Take Risks dedicates more time to expanding his theories.

Et tu, YouTube In things that you can’t believe are only just happening now, YouTube has just decided to ban anti-vaccination content on its platform after more than a decade of amplifying such views to the world. All it took was a 18 month long global pandemic that has killed 5 million people. The Google-owned video platform’s approach to content moderation has long lagged behind other services like Facebook and Twitter, despite the fact it’s more influential and popular than the latter.

This is a platform used by 14.6 million Australians who spend an average of 21 hours a month watching it! But for some reason — perhaps because the people who do the regulating and the reporting are often outside the younger demographic who primarily use it — it seems to skate by without the same scrutiny as other platforms. OK, YouTube, now do climate change denialism.

A Handy Guide To Climate Change Gymnastics, Part 2 Speaking of which… Yesterday we started our guide — illustrated by Mitch Squire — to the contortions our painfully slow slouch towards a target of net zero by 2050 is requiring of various political and media figures. Today, it’s the News Corp Flourish:

A staple of the artistic floor routine: the athlete douses the gymnasium in accelerant and sets the building on fire. The athlete emerges from the blaze with a beaming smile as they proudly announce to horrified onlookers that they no longer plan to set gymnasiums on fire.